


Elegy

by NotJustFeet



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Cellist, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 06:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotJustFeet/pseuds/NotJustFeet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson loved a cellist</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elegy

The sound is low, long and drawn out. Slowly it deepens, and then lightens, a note slowly travelling up and down the scale. It ghosts though the mostly empty rooms of the former Stark Tower. Almost solid, it curls under the doors and echoes in the ears of the Avengers.

Their downtime is sporadic. After dealing with Loki, it has been a never-ending carousel of PR, press conferences, briefings and trying not to throttle each other. Oh, and dealing with world ending threats.

After having to track Hawkeye down in Timbuktu of all places, pry Bruce out of Brazil, and persuade Tony not to buy Madagascar just to pet a lemur, Director Nick Fury wanted to have all the Avengers under one roof, if only to curtail the chaos to New York instead of the rest of the world. Tony offered the Stark Building, and full of plastic sheeting and building materials as it was, it started to become their home.

The dysfunctional team is starting to become a dysfunctional family.

The scales are mournful, but gradually picking up pace, sliding up and down in a pattern that should become monotonous, but somehow instead catches at the mind. Each note on the scale is clear and distinct, ringing out into the silence.

Slowly they gather, drawn from their personal affairs. Natasha leads the way, her eyes bright with tears that she will not let fall. She knows. Steve comes next, head tilted as he listens, confusion written across his face. Bruce and Tony come next, lost in their science, the music swirling about them until it seeps through the jargon and silences them both. Thor paces solemnly behind, as if in a procession.

They track the sound through the empty halls, following Natashas sure and swift steps and the pull of the music.

Abruptly it stops, cut off in the middle of the note. Silence blooms, thick and dark and deep, edged with despair. The night is lonelier without the mournful sigh. Then it starts again, quicker and surer, a haunting melody that calls to the heart and to the soul.

Ahead of them, the bright light spills out into the hallway. Rich and warm, it offers a beacon to the searchers. Shards of glass glisten against the blue carpet, dazzling like diamonds on the torn remains of a photograph. Caught in black and white, forever immortalised with an unusual smile on his face, Agent Phil Coulson laughs up at them.

“He loved a cellist,” Natasha speaks quietly, softly, but still everyone hears her over the music that pours around them.

They part and surround the rich warm glow of the light, staring into the doorway.

Lost in the music, his fingers as sure on the bow and neck of the instrument in peace as they are on his weapons of war, Clint finds his way to mourn. As the tears make their tracks down his cheeks, and the grief pours from his fingers into the cello, his friends gather round him.

They mourn.

**Author's Note:**

> These were the two pieces that I had in mind while I wrote this.
> 
> http://youtu.be/S6yuR8efotI
> 
> http://youtu.be/RM9DPfp7-Ck


End file.
